For the Design Module, most of these changes were issued in the pre-release version 4.1.025. Those users will have already seen most of the content below and should look for the [4.1.026] and later flags for newer changes. 4.1.027 includes some additional enhancements to the way taxes are displayed and processed. Design/Purchasing users should review all changes.

Please read the important notes about the new Illustration Sheet reports (Design Module) and the PO Recap reports (Purchasing Module) below.

General

[Enhanced] A number of reports, both existing and new, support the new "medium" description option. This prints the short "Product/Type" description along with any non-blank single fields such as "Color," "Size," etc., but does not print the longer "Additional Description" field. Use the "medium" option when you want to include basics like size and color but not full detail.

[Enhanced] This module's Help reference section now includes a Design Reports List with notes. [4.1.027]

[Fixed] The preview window shows a full view of a report instead of the small window. [4.1.027]

[Fixed] Backups that included the support files were incomplete: A printing preview support file was still open and did not copy properly.

General: Setup Form

[New] A fourth line has been added to the address fields on the "Company Information" tab for use with more complex addresses or for adding a country name. This will appear where applicable on all non-custom POs and invoices. Custom formats may also incorporate the new line, depending on how the company address is handled in them.

The single-line company address on the standard report footer has been modified to include this new field (if you use a logo on your documents, please note that this single-line format has limitations on the total length of the address and phone numbers it can handle without encroaching on the logo).

[New] A "Business ID" field has been added to the "Company Information" tab for future use in custom reports where a business license number is needed.

[New] A "Tax ID/Number" field has been added to the "Company Information" tab for situations where your firm's tax ID or VAT number needs to appear on invoices. This will appear automatically on the regular invoice if you enter it here.

[New] A "Tax Label" field has been added to the "Program Options"  tab. It allows you to control the word or phrase used to describe a sales tax or VAT on quotes, invoices and screens. This defaults to the word "tax" (lower case). You can change that to any word or short phrase desired, such as "VAT". This is substituted for the default word "tax" in labels, so do not add words like "amount" since these are already part of the format. We recommend keeping this entry short.

This field will be incorporated into other report formats as development continues.

[New] A "Default Invoice Title" field has been added to the "Report  Options" tab to allow control of the title text that appears on regular invoices. This field defaults to "INVOICE" (upper case). This does not affect the "Invoicing Detail" option that formats the "invoice" for use as backing data. You can set a separate title for that, however, if you select that option on this screen. The title will be retained for the  "detail" option even if you switch off the "invoicing detail" option as the default.

General: Setup Form> User List

[New] (Administrative users) If your users log in to Windows (or your server) with a different user name from the one they use in FF&EZ, you can now "map" the Windows log-in name to the FF&EZ log-in name. Once this is set up, FF&EZ will open with the FF&EZ log-in name already entered in the "User Name" field (multi-user systems only). This option won't affect you if both log-in names are the same. Passwords in Windows will continue to be different from passwords in FF&EZ. [4.1.028]

Enhanced Tighter security for the "Access" field prevents unauthorized changes outside of the system.

[Fixed] The "Logged Out" column only showed the value for the currently highlighted user. [4.1.028]

Vendor List

[New] The new "Exempt from VAT" option on this screen prevents a VAT from being applied to the orders from vendors who do not add a VAT to their orders. This only affects for-profit (billing type 1) projects where the project's "Apply as a VAT" option is selected for the tax rate.

Project List

[New] The project's tax rate percentage can now be applied as a VAT type of tax if the "Apply as a VAT" is selected. This calculates a tax on both the purchasing cost and on the sell price. Credit for VAT paid on the purchasing cost is handled off-system.

[New] An option to tax estimated freight has been added. This will allow you to add tax on the freight to the total tax on the quote formats. (Note: some FF&EZ-Design users have had this feature for quoting, but it was not yet available for general release and not at all in the Purchasing version.)

Also: See "Project List" under "Purchasing Module" below for other tax features that affect purchasing.

[Fixed] When adding a new project, it was possible to enter a purchasing management % and then change to a type 1 (for profit) billing type without properly erasing the purchasing %.

[Fixed] When adding a new project, an empty project folder was being created in the main data set folder instead of the temporary images folder. These folders can be deleted, since the system later created the folder in the correct location as part of opening the project. [4.1.026]

Client  List

[New] A "Tax ID" field has been added for situations where a client's tax ID or VAT number needs to appear on invoices (purchasing version). This will appear automatically on the regular invoice if you enter it here.

[Fixed] When you used Add to create a new client, the alternate shipping address was being filled from the existing client that was currently highlighted on the list (instead of being blank).

FF&E Worksheet

[Enhanced] There are major new versions of the Illustration Sheet reports.  Although the format is visually compatible with the previous versions...

• There are now three possible basic layouts, including an option to place up to seven component images at the top instead of embedded with each component's section.
• There are major enhancements to how much detail you can show, including the new "medium" description that includes the shorter descriptive fields but not the "Additional Description" field.
• Wasted white space has been reduced by improvement to the logic used to include or exclude optional elements.
• Some features only work properly when used with the advanced print engine introduced in version 4.01 (however, this is the default mode of operation).

The Design module's "How to" section now has an entry that describes all the options, including the differences in the three basic layouts: Using the Illustration Sheet Formats

Important: If you have saved your own custom option selections for Illustration Sheet reports, these will continue to be available but will use the "legacy" versions of those reports. If you want to have access to all the new options and then save your preferred custom options, start with the new base version of that format, set the options as desired and then save the options with the same name you used before. This will replace your original saved options but will use the new version of the report.

You can tell which version of the Illustration Sheet is the "base" for a saved report by checking the "FF&EZ Format" file name code at the bottom right. If the code has a 2 in the file name (such as "ISM2") it is based on the older version. If it has a 3 in the file name, it uses the new version.

[Enhanced] The terminology used for tax amounts on the Quote formats is now controlled by the "Tax Label" field on the Setup Form.

[Enhanced] The label used for freight amounts on the Quote formats can be set by an option on those reports (i.e., if you want to quote "S&H" instead of just freight, you can do so when you run the report). The expression you use needs to be short in order to fit within space constraints, so you may want to add an explanatory note to the permanent boilerplate on the quote formats.

[Enhanced] The "Pricing Detail by Vendor, Spec" now includes thumbnail images and an option to control whether the vendor cost, your price or both amounts is printed. For safety, the default choice is "Price only."

[Enhanced] The "Order Pricing Worksheet" now includes a boilerplate text option that allows you to add permanent notes to the top of the pricing format. These can be used to clarify what the prices are to represent or specify conditions that are to be satisfied in completing the quote. A new option suppresses the normal currency for the project and adds a fill-in for the currency being used for quoted amounts. A prompt for total freight appears at the end of each vendor page. [4.1.026]

[Enhanced] The "Order Pricing Worksheet" now includes an option that suppresses the normal currency for the project and adds a fill-in for the currency being used for quoted amounts. This can be used when pricing items from a foreign supplier. [4.1.026]

[Enhanced] "Ordering Worksheet" has format changes to accomodate both taxes on freight and the new VAT option when printing estimated freight and tax. When printing sell prices for reference, both a total sell price and a total aggregate quote amount are shown.  The latter includes estimated freight and taxes where applicable.  [4.1.026]

[Enhanced] The "FF&E Schedule" reports now have an option to show all components and their images instead of just the primary component.

[Enhanced] The "FF&E Schedule" report options now include more control over how much of the spec description is printed. This includes the new "medium description" option, which prints the most common short description fields (like "Size" and "Color") but does not print the long description. Instead of the previous option's single checkbox, there is now a dropdown list of description options.

Important: Have you saved your own preferred options for these reports? If so, be sure to create a new version using the updated base report (so you include the new description option and your preferred setting in your saved version).

[New] A "Finish Schedule by Finish Location" report has been added which is sorted by the finish location (Floor, Base, Walls, etc.). [4.1.026]

[Enhanced] The existing "Finish Schedule" reports now include an option to display different levels of specification description.

[Fixed] The "Quote Contract by Area, Room" format now shows the total number of "key rooms" in each area and in the report summary block. This only appears if you have selected rooms to be included in the "key" total.

[New] A "Lead Time / Spend Analysis by Spec" report has been added to complement the existing one organized by object tag (this has been renamed with "by Object" to make the difference clear). The new report shows the individual specs and their total cost or price amounts in the project (if they are used) in order of lead time (in weeks) and subtotaled by months. Both of these reports now include a cumulative total for FF&E, freight and taxes so that the anticipated spend "to date" for any given period can be seen. They also include an option to report the costs instead of prices on for-profit projects and recognize the new "Apply as a VAT type" option on the project screen.

[Fixed] The Quote formats did not consistently show thumbnail images due to a previous change in the report logic. Also, the display of some information controlled by the "Show components?" option was not working correctly and some graphic lines were not printing in a logical way.

[Fixed] Under specific circumstances, the "Order Pricing Worksheet" and "Ordering Worksheet" did not show correct object sub-quantities (shown in parentheses on the report) when a specification was used on more than one object. This did not affect the report's ordering totals for each item or ordering quantities in the Purchasing system.

[Fixed] When a query that included a room Phase ID was used to print a report that included a "Locations" option, the locations were blank. (Note: This did not happen when using the report setup's "Filter> Current: Phase" option.)

[Fixed] In the "Illustration Sheet by Tag" report, some queries had the effect of suppressing the data needed to display object locations. This did not affect the quantity totals. [4.1.026]

Object List

[Fixed] An inadvertent change in the data setup caused an error to occur when deleting an object.

Specification List

[New] The "Price Quote Request" reports (by Spec ID and by Vendor) allow you to request pricing for base specifications. Unlike the "Order Pricing Worksheet" on the FF&E Worksheet, these reports do not require that objects incorporating the specs be placed in rooms. For this reason, they can include specs that have not been used. For the same reason, these reports do not show any quantities. The same boilerplate text that is available for the "Order Pricing Worksheet" (see that section above) appears on these reports. [4.1.026]

[Fixed] When using the Object command to replace an existing  object component with the current specification, selecting the object you wanted to change failed to populate the list of its components.

General

The Help reference section for this module now includes an annotated Purchasing Reports List showing all the reports available in the module. [4.1.027]

Project List

[New] A new "Apply as a VAT type" option has been added to the setup for the tax rate. If checked, this assumes that a tax will be applied to both purchase order amounts and to "sell" invoices generated from the system. This primarily affects for-profit (billing type 1) projects, where the tax rate will be applied to the order cost in addition to client invoice amounts. Vendors that are exempt from a VAT on their sales should be marked with the new "Exempt from VAT" option on the Vendor List screen (described under "Design Module" above).

Usually, there is no reason to use the "Apply as VAT type" option on a billing type 2 or 3 project, since the tax is normally applied to the cost. However, if you have vendors that are exempt from charging tax, using this option will prevent a tax from being entered on products from those vendors. .

See "Orders" below for more about the effects of this option.

[New] An option to tax freight has been added. This will add a tax or VAT amount on the freight to the total tax calculated on orders and invoices (depending on which other billing options are selected).

FF&E Worksheet

[Enhanced] The existing Query tool field "PO # / Export ID" has been split into two: "PO #" and "PO Export ID."  Use the first to find a PO number in the Worksheet (Design/Purchasing systems) and the second to locate an orders export ID created in a Design + Orders Export system.

The "PO #" query condition no longer requires that you "pad" the number with leading spaces to create an eight-digit ID. Simply enter the exact PO number.

[Fixed] During conversion to orders, if there are multiple tax rates on the items for an individual order, the order's overall tax rate is not set (the items will contain the tax rates that apply). However, if all tax rates are the same (the most common situation) the order's tax rate will now be set to match.

Orders

IMPORTANT CHANGE: The internal "PO Recap" reports now only show the PO cost amount and any taxes based on that. Some prior versions showed the PO "sell" amount instead of the cost on for-profit projects (billing type 1), however the newer "Client PO Recap" formats should be used instead (they print only the sell price).

Report name and format changes: The more compact "P.O. Recap by Client, Project" report has been renamed to "P.O. Recap List by Client, Project."  A new "P.O. Recap by Client, Project, Order" uses the more complete format of the other "Recap" reports. All of these reports have been modified to include taxes on quoted freight amounts and to make the different kinds of costs easier to see. [4.1.027]

Deprecated The "Issued" versions of the "PO Recap" reports have been moved to "legacy" status to simplify the report list. For clarity, the suffix "(All)" has been removed from the names of the corresponding "base" versions. All base versions of the Recap reports have an option to include or exclude unissued orders as needed (the default is to include them). If you need a permanent report that only prints "Issued" orders, set this option as desired and use the Save Options command.

[Enhanced] The "Tax Quote" amount no longer appears on for-profit project orders. If the project is for-profit and the "Apply as VAT type"  is selected, an "Estimated tax" calculation will appear. The "Tax Quote" only appears on purchasing management projects (billing types 2 and 3) and only if no tax rate has been entered on the order (order items automatically pick up their initial rate from the individual source specs). Otherwise, the amount will be calculated from the order items' current total cost and tax rate, and if freight is being taxed, on the freight quote amount.

Note: If you have entered a freight deposit amount or tax deposit amount and change either the tax rate or the freight quote, the deposit amounts are not updated automatically. If needed, you can recalculate the deposit amounts by right-clicking on them while editing the PO.

[New] If the Project Screen's "Apply as a VAT type" option is selected, orders will automatically include a VAT (tax) calculation for the FF&E amount. Instead of a "Tax Quote" field, the Orders screen will display the estimated tax amount instead. This is updated automatically if related changes are made to the order.

The tax calculation will also include a tax amount for the freight quote if one has been entered when the project has been set up to tax freight.

Note: Freight is always taxed at the rate shown on the order. If the tax rate is left empty, be sure to include the freight tax in any tax quotes you enter. 

The position of the tax and freight lines have been reversed on the purchase order format to reflect the logical order of the calculations.

[Enhanced] The "Vendor Deposit Requirements" section has been reorganized into a more logical arrangement.

[New] A "Check Date" field has been added to record the date of a deposit payment to a vendor. This matches the field included in the Processing function for recording deposit checks to the vendor. On the Orders screen, entering this date also updates the "Date entered" field (not visible here) with the current date.

[Enhanced] Additional options have been added when you right-click on a "required deposit" field: You can now select 50%, 60%, 70% and 100% deposit calculations.

[Enhanced] A new option has been added to the "Deposit Status" reports: "Exclude orders for which no deposit requirements have been entered?"

This can be used to eliminate orders that do not need to be included on the report. Also, the existing option to exclude orders where the deposit has been paid has been reworded to "Exclude orders where the deposit balance remaining is zero?" This better reflects how the option works, since it is possible to enter a deposit paid without entering deposit requirements.

[New] The "Balance Request Status by Project, Vendor" report shows the current status of outstanding balance check requests. It includes an option that excludes any request that has been fully paid. It is currently available on the Orders screen, but will be added to the Check Requests screen reports at a later date.

[New] The "Vendor Payment Summary by Project, Vendor" report shows the current status of outstanding deposit and balance check requests.

[Fixed] On regular orders for items to be re-sold, the tax rate is no longer applied to the order deposit or any cost-related amounts—unless the "Apply as a VAT type" option is selected on the Project screen.

[Fixed] A transaction error occurred when attempting to delete the last order created in the system.

[Fixed] In the "Shipping Variance" reports, the "Original Qty" column was mislabeled; it showed the actual quantity shipped. An option has been added to print the original quantity in an "Original Qty" column if desired.

Processing: 
Issue Orders

[Enhanced] The terminology used for tax amounts is now controlled by the "Tax Label" field on the Setup Form. Most users will either enter "Tax" or "VAT" for the label.

Processing: 
Enter Vendor Final Invoices

[Enhanced] The cells in the order line items that can be changed by the user are now colored blue, consistent with other user-editable grid cells in the system.

[Enhanced] The order of the fields has been changed to reflect the ability to tax freight. When a PO is entered during the reconciliation process, the "expected" amounts for item tax will include the freight tax amount if this applies and freight has been entered.

[Fixed] When entering variances in the quantities, the pop-up screen used to classify the variance did not make it clear that a "Shipped" date was required, leaving the "Okay" button disabled.

[Fixed] When entering invoices for order items to be re-sold, the tax amount entry field was being pre-filled with an estimated tax when it did not apply. This now only occurs on purchasing management orders or when the "Apply as a VAT type" option is set on the Project screen and the vendor is not exempt.

Also, the order of the tax and freight fields have been reversed to reflect the possibility that the tax amount may include a tax on freight.

[Fixed] For some amounts, using the "+" and "-" keys to correct rounding differences in pro rata tax or freight amounts could change the remainder from .01 to -.01 instead of zero (or the reverse). The code for calculating vendor invoice amounts has been given an overall update to minimize the need to make corrections, although these kinds of calculations will still produce occasional rounding differences.

Processing: 
Issue Invoices

[Enhanced] The title used for standard invoices and the terminology  used for tax amounts can now be set with the "Default Invoice Title" field on the Setup Form. The standard invoice format now includes a "Tax ID" entry for both your firm and the client to conform with reporting requirements for some countries. These will not appear if you leave the Tax ID blank on the Setup Form or the Client List form. The address space on the invoice format has been adjusted to allow for longer addresses that include the country name.